The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Ebix Inc. (NASDAQ:EBIX). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Technology company by 5.63% to 2.88 million shares with purchase of 0.15 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 9.33% valued currently at $54.77 million. In addition, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings by 67409.0 to 1.16 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 0.42% or 1900.0 shares – to 0.45 million shares.
With over 0.45 million Ebix Inc. (EBIX) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $18.76 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $8.35 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 1.79% and its price on 01/10/23 gained nearly 5.16%. Currently, there are 30.78M common shares owned by the public and among those 24.26M shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 0 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 0 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 0 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 0 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 0 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Ebix Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 1.76 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $33.41 million. The company bought an additional 668.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 5.69% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 52.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.64 million shares at a value of $12.07 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.06% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Ebix Inc. (NASDAQ: EBIX) opened at $17.65, down -$0.19 from a prior closing price of $17.84. However, the script later moved the day high at 19.30, up 5.16%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -3.45% and 2.35% over the past three months. EBIX shares are trading -6.01% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -38.00% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $12.50 and touched a high of $44.42 over the same period. EBIX has an average intraday trading volume of 487.07K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -4.18%, -3.52%, and -19.61% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Ebix Inc. (NASDAQ: EBIX) shares accounts for 70.50% of the company’s 30.78M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 40.22%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 40.22% and 28.42% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $568.80M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 2.45. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 7.99, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.35. The company has a PEG of 0.80 and a Quick Ratio of 0.40 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.03. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 8.01% over the week and 6.99% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Ebix Inc. (EBIX) will achieve an EPS of $0.59 for the current quarter, $0.78 for the next quarter and $3.37 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.54 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.65. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.5 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -26.30%, and 6.58% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 10.00% over the next five years, compared to -4.90% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 2 brokerage firm advisors rate Ebix Inc. (EBIX) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.50. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 2 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the EBIX, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Maxim Group stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on July 12, 2018, with the firm’s price target at $108. Sidoti coverage for the Ebix Inc. (EBIX) stock in a research note released on December 19, 2017 offered a Buy rating with a price target of $90. William Blair was of a view on September 28, 2017 that the stock is Outperform, while Northland Securities gave the stock Outperform rating on March 15, 2011, issuing a price target of $27- $29. Northland Securities on their part issued Outperform rating on December 13, 2010.
